Stop Painting.

Let me ask you something about your suffering:

Do you think that your obedience to God obligates Him to fix you? To make your suffering stop? To grant you the fulfillment of your wildest daydreams?

Is your motivation for following Jesus based on your concept of redemption instead of His? Are you dreaming up your own picture of what the world is going to look like when you meet up with that light at the end of the tunnel?

Are you in love with healing . . . or holiness?

Really ask yourself that. What do you really want? Do you want to be more like Jesus - or do you just want the picture you've painted, and you think that if you just obey Him long enough, hold out long enough, try hard enough - He'll give it to you?

Are you prepared to accept the possibility that what He's going to give you at the end of all this suffering won't look a thing like what you've been expecting?

Jesus isn't interested in granting your wishes. He's interested in His glory and giving you what He knows you really need - Himself. And there will be a whole lot more that comes with that, more than you could ever want or imagine. Psalm 37:4 promises us that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our hearts - the very desires of our innermost being, the unfulfilled longings that keep us awake at night and weigh us down all day. He'll give them to you in rich fullness.

But first you have to let go of your painting and put down your brush.